Prudential on lookout for Asian partner

Prudential on lookout for Asian partner

SINGAPORE (DPA): American firm Prudential Securities Inc hopes to team up with an Asian investment bank to target the region's booming corporate finance market, news reports in Singapore said yesterday.

"We are developing an Asian research capability initially in Hong Kong and we want to find a partner on the banking side," Prudential president and chief executive officer Hardwick Simmons said in an interview with the Business Times newspaper.

Prudential is the United States' fifth largest brokerage in terms of numbers, the report said.

Driven by Wall Street's extended bull run, revenues have jumped by 80 percent at Prudential's Singapore office this year against the same period last year, repeating an 80 percent surge in 1996 over 1995.

Company officials said the Singapore office's operations are the fastest-growing of its three regional components, the other two being Hong Kong and Australia.

Though nearly half of the Singapore office's clients are from Singapore, most of its big players - in terms of assets - come from Indonesia and Malaysia, according to the office's managing director Michael Tan.

Simmons said Prudential's Asian clients were fewer in number than their US counterparts, but that the Asians' wealth was more concentrated. He also said Asian investors were more risk-prone.

"Because a lot of wealth here was developed through real estate - I don't want to use the word 'speculator' - they have more a sense of risk," he said.

Prudential reported US$100 million in revenue from Asia last year, up 40 percent from 1995. The company's global revenue amounted to some $3.5 billion.